The Forum on Education Election Process

John Stewart – Vice Chair APS Forum on Education, West Virginia University

The Forum on Education (FEd) Executive Committee is in the process of finalizing a slate of candidates for open positions on the Forum on Education Executive Committee. Three new members will be elected this fall and will begin their terms of office at the FEd annual business meeting during the April 2016 APS meeting in Salt Lake City. The three open posts are Vice Chair and two Members at Large; one of the Members at Large must also be an American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) member. Members at Large serve three-year terms and the Vice Chair serves for four years. The Vice Chair position is part of the leadership chain and will become in turn Chair-Elect (currently Tim Stelzer), Chair (currently Randy Knight) and Past Chair (currently Michael Fauerbach). The Vice Chair is responsible for the nomination of new members to the executive committee. The Chair Elect is in charge of planning FEd sessions at the March and April meeting. The Chair is in charge of running the Executive Committee and the Past Chair oversees awards and fellowships.

The nominating process started with the last FEd newsletter which included a call for nominations from the FEd membership. The nominating process continues with the formation of a Nominating Committee containing members selected by the current Chair. While the Bylaws call for the committee to contain two members and the Vice Chair, the committee was expanded this year to include six members invited by the Chair and the Vice Chair. This expansion provided additional diversity on the committee and divided the workload of looking through the entire FEd membership for possible candidates for the upcoming election. The AAPT was also invited to provide a member of the nominating committee and did so. The Chair formally sanctioned the committee in August. The FEd membership list was divided among the committee members with each receiving one-third of the membership list. Each committee member proposed a list of potential candidates. These six lists were combined producing a list of 85 possible candidates. Nominations from the membership were added to the list. Each committee member then ranked each candidate on a scale of 1-5 for the post of Vice Chair and the post of Member at Large. The current Vice Chair then contacts the highest ranked candidates.

As of this writing, the process of contacting candidates is ongoing.

FEd ByLaws Covering the Nominating Process
The Nominating Committee shall consist of the Vice-Chair, and at least two members appointed by the Forum Chair, in consultation with the Vice-Chair, no later than August 1 of each year. All appointed members must be members of the Forum. The Vice-Chair shall serve as the Chair of the Nominating Committee. The APS Chief Executive Officer shall be invited to appoint one member to the Nominating Committee. The term of office for members of the Nominating Committee shall be one year.

The Nominating Committee is responsible for preparing a slate of candidates for each year’s election. No later than August 1 of each year, the Vice Chair shall invite, via email or the Forum newsletter, all Forum members to suggest candidates for all positions that will be elected that year. If as many as twenty-five members of the Forum, or 1% of the membership, whichever is larger, suggest the same person for the same office by October 1, that person shall be deemed nominated. The Nominating Committee, taking into account suggestions received from members, shall nominate at least two candidates for each open position. The Nominating Committee shall submit the slate of candidates to the Secretary-Treasurer not later than October 15 of each year.

Disclaimer – The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Forum on Education Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS.